Archeologists are hoping to piece together from ancient remains the history of one of the Bible's great antagonists: Goliath. Most of the excavating has taken place at the remains of what the team believes is the Philistine city of Gath, Goliath's hometown, where scholars are hoping to garner a better understanding of these fierce biblical enemies of the Israelites.

Problem loans at China’s banks are significantly worse than initially thought, according to Moody’s Investors Service’s news release on July 4th. This raises concerns already expressed about China’s continued ability to grow its economy at annual rates approaching double-digits. The weakness is so pervasive that Moody’s “views the credit outlook for the Chinese banking system as potentially turning to negative. ” It added:

We assume that the majority of loans [by the banks] to local governments are of good quality, but based on our assessment of the loan classifications and risk characteristics, as provided by the NAO [China’s National Audit Office] and other Chinese agencies, we conclude that the banks’ exposure to local government borrowers is greater than we anticipated…

Just last year, the Obama administration more than doubled direct American military aid to the regime ruling Yemen. The U.S. Senate voted unanimously for a non-binding resolution basically urging Obama to “use all appropriate measures” to ensure the dictatorship’s survival. And American forces were conducting secret air strikes on villages in the areas of North Yemen since late 2009 under the guise of the terror war.

Few, if any, understand what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan better than Republican Congressman and retired Army veteran Allen West of Florida (photo, left). In a speech Tuesday to the Heritage Foundation, he declared:

The name “Katmandu” brings up images of Lost Horizons and Shangri La and, perhaps, the Abominable Snowman. Katmandu is the capital of Nepal, a nation nestled within the Himalayan Mountains and sandwiched between the two most populous nations on the planet, China and India. Although imbued with the doctrines of Hinduism, the politics of Nepal is emphatically not other-worldly. In 2008, the national parliament was elected with the mission of ending the monarchy and producing a new constitution for the nation.

Now that America’s decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden is over, al-Qaeda’s hunt to replace him is just beginning.

Several names have been suggested as competitors for the helm of al-Qaeda. The problem faced by all of them, however, is inherent in the structure of the organization itself. As described by al-Qaeda insider Khalid al-Hammadi, al-Qaeda’s modus operandi is “centralization of decision and decentralization of execution.” This purposeful fracturing of command and control infrastructure makes consolidation of power very difficult.

Apart from the extreme height of the walls and the barbed wire with which they were topped, there was nothing particularly distinctive about the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was reported to have lived and died.

Even as Massachusetts Senator John Kerry was on his way to Islamabad on a mission to mend deteriorating relationships between the United States and Pakistan, Pakistan's parliament passed a unanimous resolution in the early hours of Saturday morning, calling for a review of all aspects of the nation's relationship with the United States. The session was highlighted by expressions of anger and embarrassment caused by the raid by the CIA and U.S. Navy SEALs that succeeded in the finding and killing Osama bin Laden in the al-Qaeda leader's house in Abbottabad, 35 miles from the nation's capital. The resolution called the raid a "violation of Pakistan's sovereignty."

Every incarnation of totalitarianism must eventually war with Christianity. Sometimes this is simply outright persecution of any type of Christianity. More often, though, brutal regimes have manifested their hatred of Christianity by rigorously oppressing genuine and independent Christian faith and replacing it with a state-sponsored and state-controlled "Christianity."